


summer, sickly sweet-smelling air and finding yourself

by hydrogenbismuth



Category: Original Work
Genre: Existential Angst, Gen, References to Depression, Sad, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrogenbismuth/pseuds/hydrogenbismuth
Summary: Birds like to chirp more at 5 am, I noticed. Something about the world waking up, but I hear it differently. No one is awake, and they can be themselves for once. Let out all the songs that they usually keep inside. I wish I could do the same.
Kudos: 3





	summer, sickly sweet-smelling air and finding yourself

**Author's Note:**

> based on a prompt given to me by a dear friend

Every year summer comes around, and every year I forget how it makes me feel.

Birds like to chirp more at 5 am, I noticed. Something about the world waking up, but I hear it differently. No one is awake, and they can be themselves for once. Let out all the songs that they usually keep inside. I wish I could do the same.

I keep saying “I” but I am not even sure who that person is. Better say “they”. How I would describe a person I just met on a bus stop. They probably have a world inside of them, colours and shapes unknown to me, noises and secrets I will never hear. I don’t even speak their language. Like the chirps outside my window, I can’t ever understand them fully.

The sweetness of summer makes them want to cry. They don’t know why, but something about the definitive absoluteness of it. It was, it is, it will be. It’s always. And they are not.

They fall asleep.

If summer was a person, it would be a child. How in the mornings it’s one thing, but in the afternoon - another. How suddenly it changes, how completely incomprehensible it is sometimes. How change actually makes it more stable. How ignorant it is. They want to be summer. That way no one would be surprised when suddenly comes a downpour and how thunder can rumble on a sunny day.

Were they ever a person? When did they start losing pieces of their crumbling self? When did the last piece drop? How do they walk this path back when they are gone?

They remember their childhood. How everything was big and out of their reach. How they were happy when their friend, summer, was back. How they would they stick their nose out of the window and smile when the sun kissed their face. The light shone bright and the was no darkness in sight. Nowadays, the sun is met with absolute nothingness and can’t shine. It only makes it more obvious that they are not here, while everything else is. 

They wake up.

The afternoon is bright and hot. The afternoon doesn’t care. The afternoon comes along with responsibilities and promises. They have to, and no one cares that they are just a ghost of a person. They have to float from one place to another, completing a plan, which brings a sense of numbness. They stop caring. The world will continue spinning, afternoons will keep happening, so why bother finding those missing pieces? They can function. If success is a definition of worth, they at least will have some of that. 

People smile a lot when summer comes. People exclaim “It’s summer!”. People become different when warmth fills their hearts. 

They are tired.

The evening is quiet and calm. It doesn’t ask anything of you, it accepts you either way. The evening is for self-reflection.

They don’t have any of that self. They can only reflect others. They think that others are having fun, how they are supposed to be. They are happy that there are people who know themselves enough to know what is fun and how to have it. They are ready to be done with the day.

They can’t sleep.

It’s 5 am again. It’s sweet again. It’s chirping, again.  
But this time they listen closely.

Morning is your close and old friend. It knows you; it understands you. You can tell it your secrets and your noises, your shapes and colours and it will answer, clear and simple.

So, they scream.

Scream louder than the birds, cry harder than the downpour, ask with more desperation than when they were a child.  
And then listen.

No one is born knowing themselves. Life is not about answers, it’s about questions. And constant wonder and change. Summer is a concentrated snippet of life’s chaos. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to be easily defined to exist, to know that you exist. You are not defined by answers, you are defined by the questions you ask. 

Birds start to quiet down. The sweet smell of summer is stronger than ever.  
I fall asleep.


End file.
